Weather forecasters use a mix of radar, satellite, forecast models, and observational data to forecast weather. Historically, weather observation networks have focused on atmospheric conditions and may ignore areas below the horizon where people live and drive vehicles. Weather data acquired or collected by the historical observation networks is primarily tailored to atmospheric-based observation rather than ground-based observation. Based on such atmospheric-based weather data, forecasters can predict specific atmospheric conditions which are consistent with a specific weather event, but unfortunately cannot verify that the event is actually taking place or will take place on or near the ground in localized population centers. Instead, confirmation is left to haphazard ground-based reports from local storm-chasers and the like to confirm the weather event by visual means. Thus, forecasters remain limited in their ability to provide long-lead forecasts for localized, small-scale, and high impact phenomena, such as individual thunderstorm cells, the location of the divide between rain and snow during major storms, flash floods, and fine-scale, short-lived variations in solar radiation and low-level winds.